How Pay10’s UAE Push Could Simplify Business and Travel
The UAE is moving quickly to make digital payments feel less like banking admin and more like everyday infrastructure, and Pay10 is positioning itself right inside that shift. The Dubai-headquartered fintech says it now operates in the UAE as a regulated payments player with services spanning merchant acquiring, payment aggregation, domestic fund transfers, cross-border remittances, digital wallets and Open Finance capabilities. For readers in Egypt, that matters because the UAE is not only a major business hub for regional companies, but also one of the most important travel, work and remittance corridors in the Arab world.
In practical terms, Pay10’s new UAE proposition is not just about one app or one checkout button. It is about building a broader payment layer that can serve merchants, travellers and cross-border users in the same ecosystem. On its official site, Pay10 says its UAE entity is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of the UAE and holds Open Finance, Retail Payment Services and Stored Value Facility authorisations, alongside online payment aggregation capabilities. The company lists its office in Business Bay, Dubai, and presents the UAE as one of its core regulated markets.
Why the UAE launch matters now
The timing is important. The Central Bank of the UAE has been steadily building the country’s Open Finance framework, describing it as a way to encourage more consent-driven, customer-centric and secure digital financial services. In its 2025 annual report, the central bank said the UAE’s Open Finance initiative, Al Tareq, went live in 2025, with participating banks and third-party providers meeting operational requirements to provide services through open banking APIs.
That context helps explain why Pay10’s UAE move is more than a standard market entry. On its corporate timeline, the company says it opened its new headquarters in Dubai in 2023, received Stored Value Facility and Retail Payment Services & Card Schemes licences from the Central Bank of the UAE in 2024, and then received approval for Open Finance payment initiation in 2025.
For businesses, that kind of regulatory stack matters because it suggests Pay10 is not trying to solve only one pain point. It is trying to cover checkout, wallet usage, transfers and account-linked payment initiation inside a regulated framework. That is especially relevant in the UAE, where retailers, hospitality operators, e-commerce sellers and service providers often serve residents, tourists, freelancers and multinational firms at the same time.
How Pay10 could help companies operating in the UAE
Pay10’s business-facing offer centres on giving merchants multiple ways to collect money. The company says its payment gateway supports more than 100 domestic and international payment options, while its merchant tools include QR payments, payment links, analytics and settlement features. It also advertises flexible integration methods for websites and apps, plus a merchant wallet proposition aimed at improving cost efficiency.
For an Egypt-based brand selling into the UAE, those details are not abstract. A travel company in Cairo targeting Gulf travellers, a fashion seller shipping to Dubai, or a clinic serving visiting patients may all need payment collection that works across cards, links, wallets and cross-border flows. If one provider can reduce checkout friction and simplify settlement visibility, that can improve conversion and cash flow.
There is also a less visible benefit: Open Finance. Under the UAE framework, licensed providers can initiate transactions with a user’s explicit consent and secure authentication. In simpler language, that opens the door to Pay by Bank style journeys, where customers can approve a payment directly from their bank account rather than relying only on cards. The CBUAE rulebook sets out that service initiation must happen through secure communication, explicit consent and regulated participants.
That can be meaningful for UAE merchants in sectors like travel, events, hospitality and services, where card declines, refund complexity or payment acceptance costs can become operational headaches. It can also create more checkout choice for customers who already bank in the UAE.
What this could mean for travel in the UAE
The editor’s angle is exactly where Pay10 becomes interesting for readers in the “تجارب وإلهام” section: not as a back-end finance story, but as part of a smoother travel experience. On its consumer-facing pages, Pay10 promotes a wallet that can be used to send money, scan QR codes, pay bills, top up from a bank account and send international remittances. It also says users can send and spend in more than 100 currencies.
For an Egyptian traveller heading to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, the attraction is obvious. Travel is full of small payment moments that interrupt the experience: paying a hotel deposit, splitting restaurant bills, settling transport costs, shopping across multiple merchants, or sending money to family while away. A wallet-plus-payments model can help reduce those interruptions if acceptance becomes widespread.
For business travellers, the case may be even stronger. UAE work trips often involve quick hotel stays, ride payments, expense claims, client dinners and invoice settlements on the move. A regulated payment platform that combines QR payments, links, remittances and account-connected payment initiation could make those trips feel less cash-dependent and less fragmented.
There is a tourism angle, too. The UAE has long positioned convenience as part of its visitor experience, whether in airports, malls, hotels or transport ecosystems. Fintech products that simplify payment at the point of use fit naturally into that model. Pay10 is not alone in this race, but its regulated footprint gives it a stronger base than a marketing-only launch would.
A concrete milestone: Pay10 and FAB
One of the clearest signs that Pay10 is moving beyond theory came on 30 December 2025, when First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) announced with Pay10 that the two had gone live on Open Finance under the UAE’s Al Tareq scheme. According to the report, selected FAB retail current and savings accounts were enabled to connect via Open Finance, allowing secure access to Pay by Bank payment initiation use cases, and live transactions had already been completed in production.
That is important because it shows the company’s UAE story is not just about licensing milestones. It points to actual operational use inside the country’s evolving Open Finance rails. For Egyptian entrepreneurs watching the Gulf market, that is often the real dividing line between a promising fintech and one that is starting to matter commercially.
The regional relevance for Egypt readers
Egyptian readers do not need to be payments specialists to care about this story. The UAE is a major destination for tourism, startup expansion, exhibitions, property interest and professional travel from Egypt. Any product that can make spending, collecting payments or moving money easier inside the UAE has a direct lifestyle angle for this audience.
There is also a North Africa link in Pay10’s footprint. The company says it has also secured regulatory approval in Morocco, alongside Bahrain and the UAE, which suggests an ambition to build payment connectivity across multiple Arab markets rather than operate in a single-country silo.
That does not mean every traveller in Dubai will suddenly use Pay10 tomorrow. Adoption depends on merchant reach, consumer awareness, partnerships and execution. But the fundamentals are clearer than usual: a real regulated entity, a documented UAE licensing path, a Dubai headquarters, wallet and merchant products already presented live, and an Open Finance go-live milestone with FAB.
Bottom line
Pay10’s new fintech push in the UAE matters because it sits at the intersection of business convenience and travel ease. For merchants, it promises broader acceptance options, payment links, QR payments and the possibility of bank-initiated transactions in a regulated environment. For travellers and cross-border users, it points toward faster everyday payments, easier remittances and less friction during short stays or frequent work trips.
For readers in Egypt, that makes Pay10 worth watching not as another abstract fintech brand, but as part of the region’s larger move toward seamless, regulated and experience-friendly digital spending in one of the Arab world’s most important travel and business destinations.